This past weekend, I invited our Fusion Young Adults Pastor, Johnson Bowie, to speak. I always enjoy it when he brings the word. He’s so full of passion for the things of God. Here’s a synopsis of his message (if you want to hear the whole thing, click here):
When I truly heard the message of the gospel for the first time, that there was a God who would pardon my sins, making me acceptable and righteous in the sight of God; that I would be saved from hell and know God the Father; I was so excited to receive it! What a great deal! I was on cloud nine. But then, I sinned again. I was devastated. I thought I threw it all away. I felt like the biggest loser ever. I felt like I couldn’t even look to God or talk to Him because He must be so disappointed and disgusted with me.
For years, I believed one of Satan’s biggest lies: that when I do good, God loves me more, but when I do bad, God loves me less – a real emotional rollercoaster. That’s a tough ride to be on. I can’t tell you how many times I told God that if I sinned again, He should just kill me. I preferred to be in Heaven with Him than down here sinning over and over again.
In our current series, BRICKS, we’ve been talking about the foundation stones of the Christian life, such as loving, serving and giving. But today, I’m talking about something that we think we get, but we don’t really. If we really did get it, it would totally revolutionize our lives and change the world. I’m talking about Grace – “God’s unmerited, free love and blessing for sinful man revealed and made effective in Jesus Christ.” That means there’s nothing we can do to earn it or keep it. We can’t. There’s no way we could. It’s only possible because of what Jesus has done.
There’s something we need to know if we’re going to understand grace: We all deserve hell. We all fall short. The standard is pretty high – we have to be perfect…in every thought and motivation of our hearts, not to mention our actions, every moment of our whole lives. Impossible! We have nothing to offer God to make Him love us. Apart from Christ, we are worthless!
But here’s the good news: Through Jesus Christ – through His death and resurrection – those who believe have been made as though they never sinned. Now, God sees us as if we’re perfect – without sin – no matter what we’ve done! Can you believe that?! He’s taken all the guilt and shame and replaced it with holiness, loveliness and peace. He took the just judgment of our sins upon Himself in Christ. Because of this, we can now relate freely to God as sons and daughters!
Nothing we do can make Him love us more, nor can we make Him love us less! We have to stop trying to earn God’s approval. That’s a trap of the devil. It is ONLY by grace through faith in Jesus Christ…only…nothing else…period. All we have to do, is believe. It really is that easy, that simple.
So, let me ask, what do you do when you sin? How do you respond to your own weakness? Do you run to God or away from Him? Do you humbly accept His forgiveness and love? Or, do you try to work your own way out of it? Why pursue futility? Start running into the Father’s arms of grace!
Have you been affected by the tremendous upheaval in the financial world? Almost all of us have been in one way or another. In times like these, if we’re not careful, we can forget the important foundation stone of Generosity.
Read Psalm 37:21-26 (NIV). I especially like how verses 21-22 read in The Message. Here, our faithful Father promises that those who are generous (as He is generous), even in difficult times, will be taken care of. Conversely, when we start getting stingy – drawing away from God’s heart of generosity and away from God Himself – we invite devastation and turmoil into our lives.
In order to get into the habit of generosity, we ought to ask ourselves regularly, “How much of my life is about giving, versus getting? How am I pouring into others, instead of just myself?” Depending on the answer, we may need to make some serious adjustments. One of the strong evidences that a person is truly a Christian is that their heart has transitioned from being self-focused to being focused on blessing others.
Although most people in our culture are all about getting blessed by others, God is calling us, His children, to reflect His heart and be a blessing to others. God talks more about this topic in the Bible than almost anything else. Here are some basic principles of generosity I’ve gleaned from His Word:
Generosity is motivated by love. People that are generous are motivated not because they want something, but because they love people. When we give out of selfless love, rather than because we’re hoping for a return, we are living at a higher level than most people ever experience.
Generosity is based on trust. This is a huge issue. People don’t trust God. If we’re going to be generous people and true followers of Christ, there are three things we have to settle in our hearts about God:
God cannot lie.
God’s word is His will.
God’s word cannot fail.If we believe these things, we will begin to trust Him. When we trust Him, we will demonstrate it by giving.
Generosity is affected by our stewardship. If we’re not good stewards, we’ll have a hard time being generous. In fact, the devil’s number one tactic to keep believers from being generous is debt. He wants to get us all tangled up, bound to others, so there’s nothing left to be generous with. Good Stewardship Has 3 Components:
God’s the owner – I’m the steward.
Good stewardship always flows from contentment.
Spending decisions are weighed by how it will affect your generosity.
Generosity operates with an eternal mindset. Every time we give, we are directly and indirectly impacting the lives of others, bringing them closer to God’s heart and kingdom.
I want to challenge you to think through your generosity, how generous are you? I’m not just talking about tithing – are you giving to others? Something in our hearts has to shift if we’re not. This is something the Lord wants to do. He wants to do something big inside us. He wants to shift our love from ourselves and our things to others. And, as we impact the lives of others, He wants us to have the peace and blessing of being confident in His faithfulness and provision, regardless of our circumstances, in the process.
“You make a living by what you get – you make a life by what you give.”~ Winston Churchill
In this series, BRICKS, were talking about the most common characteristics of those who look like Jesus. Last week, I talked about the first and most important characteristic, Love. The second thing that really stood out to me as I studied Jesus life and example was that He served us. Although He was God, He humbled Himself and became a servant. So much so that people had a hard time believing He was God because of it.
A lot of people just don’t get this serving thing. Many come into the church and think that it is all about others serving them, rather than the other way around. But God wants to transform us, to set us free from our selfishness. He knew that we are all born incredibly selfish, and the absolute best cure for that is to serve others. So, He set the example.
It’s natural for us to want to be great. But our understanding of true greatness is skewed by the world’s selfish perspective. Jesus said that if you really want to understand greatness, it starts with understanding that we’re here to serve others, not to be served. There has to be a shift that takes place in our Christianity – from childishly and selfishly expecting others to serve us, to expecting to serve others.
If you’re going to move from a heart of selfishness to God’s heart of servanthood, that is, to be like Christ, we must shift from:
Pride to humility
A me focus to an others focus
Attending to participating in the local church
A lot of people don’t understand why God put the church together. And, honestly, when I was first saved, I had a wrong idea about the church too. I thought it was just a place where people went to sing a few songs and hear a preacher peach. But really, it’s a group of people that God has brought together to fulfill His purposes and to accomplish things for His kingdom. It’s about the exponential power of joining with others. There is tremendous power in joining with other people in service. That’s why the enemy wants to isolate us from others.
Can you imagine what would happen if everyone in this church served like you do? Do you serve too much? Do you not serve at all? God is calling His people in these last days to get the heart of a servant. How do we do that? By getting plugged in to a local body of believers and serving. (If you’d like to get plugged in and start serving at Victory – which I’m obviously kind of partial to – you can start by clicking here to see descriptions of many of the areas you can serve in, even if you’re not a member yet!)
(Click here to listen to, watch or download this last weekend’s message on Servanthood.)
Recently, I’ve been sensing the Lord encouraging me to talk about some of the foundational truths that every Christian needs to have as a part of their lives in order to weather the storms of life. Way too many of God’s people do not have a good foundation in who He is. They may have started a journey with Jesus, but rather than making Him the foundation of their lives, they only added Him on top of their old life. Then, when the storms come, they can’t withstand the onslaught. They end up washed away, just like the man in Jesus’ parable who built his house on the sand. In order to withstand the storms of life, we really have to start over – to be born again – and let Christ rebuild our lives on a new foundation – His truth.
These days, there are a lot of things coming against us, trying to rock our lives. If we’re not built on the Rock, we will not withstand them. My hope is that through this series, BRICKS, we will be able to let go of those things that keep us from being grounded in Jesus and replace them with the foundational truths of the Gospel.
Love is the first and foremost foundation stone. Love flows from knowing that you are loved by God. God wants us to understand that no matter how bad we’ve been…He never, ever stops loving us! He doesn’t want us to work for His love, but to work from His love. There’s nothing we can do to earn His love. The more we know this, the more we will walk out our lives from this position of love. Our ability to love is only limited by our understanding of God’s love for us.
Our lives need to be rooted and grounded in love – first for God; second for others. Now, way too many people think love is a feeling. It’s not. It’s a decision. It’s a choice to love, regardless of how you feel, in every situation – no matter what comes against us.
In closing, I’d like to share the top four dimensions of love for those who want to be a Christ follower:
Loving the hurting. The more we are surrendered to God, the more compassion we’ll have for others, for those who are hurting and suffering in this world.
Loving people of a different culture. It’s about reaching out to other people and other cultures in ways that may not be comfortable to me so that they can receive the Gospel without hindrance.
Loving the lost. People come to our church all the time who are lost. Their first encounter of Christ is each one of us, and it’s not our job to start pointing out all the things that they’re doing wrong. Rather, our job is to love them and clear whatever obstacles we can from the road to salvation – especially those put up by religious people.
Loving your enemies. We cannot afford to let ourselves get offended. We have to walk in love and forgiveness. The trap of offense is huge – that is how the enemy gets us to break our relationships. Bitterness is the number one thing that takes Christians down. We’ve got to mature above offense and stay humble.
…is our ongoing campaign to reach out to others simply because we care…about changed lives, impacting others, spreading the gospel and helping the helpless. Because we care, we give. Through iCare we are able to be Christ to individuals and communities, both locally and abroad.
This month, we are focusing our iCare giving on two projects:
First, we continue our partnership with missionaries Mike and Deborah Turner and LifeLink International, in their vision of bringing hope and opportunity – the gift of a lifetime – to the children of Nicaragua, the second poorest nation in the western hemisphere.
With the Nicaraguan government mandating, but not enforcing, that children attend school only through 6th grade, the majority of children cannot even afford to complete those six levels. The LifeLink International team is working hard to bring the gift of a quality, first-class Christian education.
We are excited to take part in this vision by providing for the construction of a preschool for 75 students just waiting for the opportunity to learn English as a second language, art, music and drama, and computer technology with the latest in educational resources, all in a Christian environment.
This is the first of five phases of an education facility on the LifeLink International Ministry Base, which will help to instill not only a hope of life in Jesus Christ, but also the hope and opportunity of living beyond poverty with a bright future destined for greatness in God’s Kingdom.
Eventually, the educational facility will include elementary and middle school grades and a vocational training center. Already completed is a kitchen where each child will receive a healthy hot meal each day.
Also this month, we are helping to repair a number of homes in our community which were damaged in the recent floods, demonstrating the love of Christ in a very practical way to some of those who need it most.
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October 28th, 2009 by 
Dennis Rouse
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